Murder in the Smokies

chapter Fourteen



“Any luck?”

At the sound of the friendly male voice, Ivy looked up from her cell phone and saw Mark Bramlett standing in an open doorway, a nearly empty pot of coffee in one hand and a cup in the other.

“I’m going to have to verify their alibis, but both of your employees have accounted for the days and times of the murders.”

Bramlett smiled. “I could have told you that.” He nodded at the coffeepot in his hand. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Detective?”

Considering how much her energy was starting to flag for so early in the day, a cup of coffee sounded like a brilliant idea. “Sure. And is there a room I can borrow while I make a few phone calls?”

“You can do it right here in the break room. I’ve got to go load the truck for a delivery.” He led her into the break room and put a disposable cup in front of her. As he emptied the coffeepot into her cup, he added, “Are you planning to stick around to talk to Kel when he comes in after lunch?”

“I need to make a few calls, and I may end up having to leave for a while,” she said. “But if I do, I’ll definitely be back this afternoon.”

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Two creams, one sugar.”

He picked up her cup and crossed to the counter. She took another quick look at her list of messages, unsurprised but nevertheless disappointed that there was nothing from Sutton.

What had she expected, a message begging her to give their relationship a chance? With a wry smile, she set her phone down and turned to accept the coffee from Bramlett. “Thanks.”

“You let me know if you need anything.” With a small wave, he left the break room, closing the door behind him.

Waiting for the coffee to cool, she called Antoine to check on his progress. He sounded a little out of breath when he answered.

“I’ve never walked so many hills in my life,” he complained. “Next job I take, it’s going to be somewhere like Kansas. Nice and flat.”

“Anything suspicious about any of the trucks?”

“Well, half of ’em looked like they hadn’t been washed in years, so I don’t think they’re going to be our mystery trucks. I’m looking into the alibis on a couple that might fit the bill, but nothing about those truck operators struck me as particularly suspicious. Any luck at the nursery?”

“Not yet. I’m going to make some calls from here, maybe stick around and talk to the employee who’s coming in at one unless something comes up.”

“All right. I’ll let you know if I come across anything on my end. You do the same?”

“You bet.” Ivy hung up and pulled out her notepad to check her interview notes. Next call, Plott’s pastor, since Plott swore he’d been at church helping out on a mission project the night Amelia Sanderson was killed. But when she dialed the number he’d given her, she got a voice mail message informing her everyone was out to lunch. She left a message for the pastor to call her and picked up the cup of coffee, starting to take a sip.

She paused just before the coffee touched her lips.

Slowly, she lowered the cup back to the table and looked down at the milky-brown liquid. Two creams, one sugar, just as she’d requested. But had she actually watched Bramlett put the extras in her coffee?

She looked behind her at the counter. Two torn individual creamer packets and a sugar packet ripped in two lay on the counter. She crossed to the counter to examine them, feeling ridiculously paranoid. But if their theory was correct, the person who’d killed their four victims had also planted the belladonna at the cemetery. And a single belladonna leaf contained enough poison to kill an adult human.

How hard would it be to infuse a cup of coffee with crushed belladonna leaves? Or put a tasteless, colorless drug like Rohypnol in her drink while she had her back turned?

She started to leave the cup of coffee where it sat, then thought better of it and poured the liquid down the drain of the break room sink. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, picked up the empty cup and pulled off the glove, letting it turn inside out and envelop the cup. After tying the wrist opening into a knot, she placed the cup into her purse and dropped back into the chair in front of the table, feeling equal parts stupid and relieved.

A knock on the break room door made her jump. Mark Bramlett stood in the doorway, an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, but I just came across something kind of strange on the underside of the truck. Would you come take a look and tell me if I’m just imagining things?”

Curiosity eclipsed her paranoia, and she followed Bramlett out of the office. There was nobody else in the front office, she noted with surprise, not even the two men she’d just interviewed. Maybe they were all out in the greenhouses, she supposed, walking fast to keep up with Bramlett’s long-legged stride.

“I wouldn’t have even seen it at all if I hadn’t thought I heard something under the truck. Occasionally a possum or raccoon, or even a feral cat, will crawl up into the underside of vehicles to get warm. I didn’t want to start the truck and chop some poor critter into pieces. So I looked up under the truck and I spotted something under the back axle.”

He waved his hand toward the back wheels, as if giving her permission to take a look.

She crouched beside the wheel and bent lower, sticking her head under the truck to see what he was talking about.

Suddenly, she felt something grab her shoulder and jerk her upward, slamming her head into the underside of the truck. Pain exploded in the back of her head, stealing her breath. Her vision swam a moment, specks of light dancing in an undulating kaleidoscope of color and darkness.

She was being dragged backward, like a rag doll, and for a moment, she couldn’t understand what was happening. Why wasn’t she fighting? Shouldn’t she be fighting back?

Her vision cleared enough for her to see that she was moving around the bumper to the open doors at the back of the truck. The hands that were still holding her hauled her up into the truck box, shoving her face down onto the hard floor.

She tried to move, her hand flailing for her service pistol. It was ripped from her before she got a good grip, and she growled a profanity, trying to roll over onto her back. Bramlett’s face swam into view, his expression hard and businesslike.

She kicked out at him, but the effort earned her a hard smack to the jaw, knocking her back into the truck. He ran his hands over her suit jacket and trousers in a rough search. “Where is it?”

“What?”

He closed his hand around her neck, compressing her trachea until she couldn’t breathe without wheezing. “Your cell phone. Where is it?”

She clawed at his hands and he hit her again. There was something she should be doing. She’d learned things about protecting herself even from a bigger attacker, but the details slogged out of reach, somewhere in the muddy mists of her aching brain.

He let go of her and backed out of the truck. She found the strength to launch herself after him, but she ended up slamming face-first into the back doors of the truck. There was no handle on the inside, only a smooth, solid wall of nothing where the door should be.

Her legs felt like noodles, helpless to keep her on her feet. She slithered into a weak puddle in front of the locked door, banging her hand against the door more in frustration than any hope that someone might hear her and let her out.

The truck’s engine growled to life, and suddenly they were moving, the forward lurch knocking her into the door again. Flattening her hands against the floor, she steadied herself until she felt confident she wouldn’t fall over again anytime soon. Her fuzzy head was starting to clear, the pain from her knock in the head subsiding from a howl to a low roar.

But she was still locked in the back of a truck driven by a man she was becoming utterly certain must be the killer they were seeking.

And God only knew what would happen once the truck stopped.

* * *

HE SHOULDN’T CALL HER. She’d made her decision clear enough that morning, in her stubborn refusal to meet his gaze as they said what had felt like a final goodbye.

But the phone felt heavy in his pocket as he pulled into a parking slot in front of Ledbetter’s Diner, a visceral reminder that he still had a choice. She’d made it clear she wasn’t going to leave Bitterwood as long as her mother was still there. And he’d vowed a long time ago that he’d never come back to this place again. Certainly not for good.

But he could change his mind. Or she could change hers. Anything seemed possible now that the only alternative was walking away from Ivy Hawkins forever.

She made him feel centered. Connected to something. He’d let himself forget that she’d always had that effect on him, even when they were little more than two scared, lonely kids looking for someone to trust. He’d let himself walk away all those years ago. He’d left her behind to fend for herself, cut that cord between them. He’d let himself forget how much that severed connection had bled during those first scary, lonely days on his own.

It would bleed again if he left her behind.

Damn it, he didn’t want to feel this much again. He’d gotten good at not feeling much at all, just the light buzz of camaraderie with his fellow soldiers, the respect and admiration he had for the people he now worked with at Cooper Security. It made life easier to deal with, less messy and constrained.

Less alive.

Well, now he was alive. And it ached like a son of a bitch. But he didn’t think he could trade it for numbness again.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed her number, waiting with his heart in his throat. After three rings with no answer, he realized she might just be ignoring his call.

Maybe he should take that as her answer.

Then someone picked up. A male voice. “Yeah?”

The unfamiliar voice gave him a start. “I—I must have the wrong number—”

“Maybe not,” the voice on the other end said. “I just found this cell phone on the ground. Maybe whoever you’re calling lost it?”

Sutton felt a flutter of unease. “Where are you?”

“Bramlett Nurseries in Bitterwood, Tennessee.”

Ivy had been going to see a man about a truck. Had Bramlett Nurseries been one of the names on her list? If it was, she might have found the place of particular interest because of the deadly nightshade plants. After all, where better to look for a plant than at a nursery? “I was calling Detective Ivy Hawkins with the Bitterwood Police Department.”

“Oh, yeah!” the man on the other end of the phone said. “Yeah, I seen her earlier, talking to the boss. Reckon maybe she just dropped it by accident. Want me to see if I can find her around here?”

“That would be great.”

There was the muffled sound of movement on the other end of the call, muted voices conferring just out of earshot. Finally the man said, “She was definitely here a few minutes ago, but nobody knows where she is now.”

“Okay, thanks.” He started to hang up, then added, “Hey, you still there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are you located?”

“Emerson Valley, just outside Bitterwood. If you’ve been ’round here long, there used to be a horse farm where we are now—Emerson Farm? Used to raise Tennessee walkers.”

“I know the place. Thanks.”

Emerson Valley was only about ten minutes away. He made it there in eight minutes and parked next to Ivy’s department car, which sat near the front entrance of the sprawling plant nursery.

There was a man at the front counter, finishing up with a customer. Sutton waited, looking around for Ivy inside the store, but she wasn’t in sight.

When he got the chance to talk to the clerk, he introduced himself, grimacing inwardly at the man’s wary shift in expression when he said the name “Calhoun.” “I called earlier, looking for Detective Hawkins.”

“Right. Yeah, we haven’t found her yet.”

Sutton frowned. “Her car’s still parked outside.”

“Oh.” The man looked surprised. “I just figured she left when the boss left.”

“The boss?”

“Mr. Bramlett. He took off in the truck about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Could Detective Hawkins have gone with him?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t think so. Mr. Bramlett was by himself when he drove off.”

Fingers of alarm crept up Sutton’s spine. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I saw him go. Just him in the driver’s seat. I didn’t see nobody else with him, which I thought was kind of weird ’cause he was hauling a big mulch order over to the park in Meadowbrook—you don’t want to try to handle that by yourself.”

“He didn’t take the mulch order.” A man passing by stopped and laid his hand on the counter. “Mulch order’s still out there on the loading dock.”

“Oh.” Once again the man behind the counter looked flummoxed. “Okay, then.”

“Can you call Mr. Bramlett?” Sutton asked.

“Sure thing.” The counterman pulled a phone receiver from beneath the counter and punched in a number. He waited a few seconds, then looked up at Sutton. “No answer. That’s odd.”

Very odd, Sutton thought, his gut starting to tighten. “Were you the one who found her cell phone?”

“No, that was Kel.” The counterman called over a man in grimy jeans and a faded denim shirt with the words Bramlett Nurseries embroidered on the left front pocket. “You found that phone, right?”

“That’s right,” Kel answered. He looked with curiosity at Sutton.

“Can you show me where you found it?” Sutton asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Kel led him outside, past the loading dock, where several pallets full of packaged mulch sat, and stopped in a grass-free area a few yards away. “It was layin’ right here.”

Sutton scanned the area for any sign of Ivy. He didn’t see her, but he spotted fresh-looking tire tracks in the soft ground. “Is this where you park the company truck?”

“Sometimes. It was parked there this morning, anyway.”

All the pieces were starting to fall into place, and the picture they formed had Sutton’s heart rattling hard against his sternum. “Thanks,” he told Kel, walking a few feet away and getting into his truck. He dug Ivy’s business card from his wallet. Her cell phone number was most prominent, but there was a Bitterwood Police Department direct-line number in smaller print under the address. He gave it a call and asked for Antoine Parsons.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Antoine who answered. “Mr. Calhoun.” It took only a second for Sutton to place the voice. Glen Rayburn. He had a particularly smarmy way of saying the name “Calhoun.”

“Captain Rayburn, I’m looking for Ivy Hawkins. I have reason to believe she may be in danger.”

“Oh, she’s in danger, son. Of losing her job if she keeps fraternizing with unsavory characters. I’ll be sure to mention your call to her.” Rayburn hung up on him.

Son of a bitch! Sutton pulled up the number he’d saved for Davenport Trucking and dialed the main number. “Rachel Davenport, please,” he said when the receptionist answered.

“Ms. Davenport is out this morning,” the receptionist replied.

“Then Mr. Davenport.”

“He’s with Ms. Davenport.”

Damn it. “Listen, I have reason to believe one of your trucks is being used to commit crimes. I assume you have a GPS tracker on all your trucks?”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said, “but we don’t track them as a policy. We only check the GPS information if there’s a billing discrepancy or some sort of legal issue.”

“Murder is a legal issue!” Sutton snapped.

“Murder?” The woman stuttered the word.

“Three of your previous employees are dead, and this truck may be involved in the killings.”

The woman’s voice took on a distinctly wary tone. “Sir, if this is some sort of prank call, please stop. We will report you to the authorities.” She hung up on him.

He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. The blow stung all the way up his arm, but he held on to the sensation, used the pain to center himself. There was one option left. Not a great one, but he had to take a chance. He dialed another number.

On the third ring, Seth Hammond answered. “Sutton? Is something wrong with Cleve?”

“No, he’s doing fine. Flirting with nurses when I left him.”

Seth chuckled. “That’s about right.”

“Listen, I hate asking you this, but time may be running out.” As economically as he could, he told Seth what he suspected. “Bramlett was on a list of companies renting trucks from Davenport at the time of the murders.”

“And you think someone there might be the killer?” Seth sounded skeptical. “Just because of the connection to Davenport?”

“It’s not that simple, but I can’t explain it.”

“’Cause God knows, I ain’t trustworthy, right, Sutton?”

“I’ve already trusted you with more than I probably ought to,” Sutton shot back. “I need your help, Seth. Is there any way to access real-time tracking of the GPS units in those trucks?”

“Yeah, we’ve done it before to help the police find one of our stolen units,” Seth said. “But management will require a warrant, I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t have time for that. I think the man who killed those four women may have Ivy Hawkins.”

“Just because she lost her phone?”

It wasn’t that simple, but Sutton didn’t know how to explain his certainty without sounding like a fool. Something was wrong. Ivy was in trouble. He knew it bone deep. “If we were ever friends, Seth, help me.”

Seth was silent a moment. “There’s a way to access the GPS, but I may have to tell a few lies to get it done.”

Sutton bit back a desperate laugh. “You ought to be able to handle that. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I reckon I can. Do you know the unit number?”

“No. But it’s the truck that Bramlett Nurseries rents.”

“Okay. Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you back.”

“Soon, Seth. It’s gotta be soon.”

“The mighty Sutton Calhoun. Knocked to his knees by a little bitty girl.” Seth’s taunting murmur lacked bite. “I’ll hurry.” He hung up.

Sutton pressed his head against the steering wheel, hoping time hadn’t already run out.

Five minutes later, his cell phone rang. “Old Lumber Mill Road, about a mile south of the turnoff to Townsend Road.” Seth Hammond’s voice greeted him without preamble. “It’s been stationary for five minutes.”

A jolt of pure adrenaline zapped Sutton’s nervous system. “Thanks.”

“You want me to call the cops?” Seth asked.

“Call Antoine Parsons—remember him from high school? Tell him Ivy may be in danger and where we think she is.”

“He’s not going to believe me.”

“Make him.” Sutton hung up and put the truck in gear.

* * *

THE DIZZINESS HAD GONE, along with most of the ache in Ivy’s head. She’d ended up bleeding quite a bit from the gash in her scalp, but she’d stanched the flow with her suit jacket. The wound had settled down to a slow ooze instead of a gush. But that was the end of the good news. She was still stuck in the back of the locked truck, still forced to sit in one place to keep from being pitched around by the vehicle’s motion.

She took advantage of every time the truck stopped moving to feel her way around the truck box, trying to remember the details of the interior from her brief inspection earlier that morning.

Had it been only that morning? Somehow, her first trip to Bramlett Nurseries felt as if it had happened a lifetime ago.

The truck stopped again, and she pushed to her feet, resuming her tactile search of the truck box. She came across a loose bit of metal batten covering a seam and plucked at it with her fingers. It gave as she pulled, and she jerked harder. The strip tore away from the box. “Yes!” she breathed.

The piece of batten wasn’t long, as it seemed to have covered only a short seam, and she could have hoped for something a little more substantial than a ruler-thin strip of flexible metal to use as a weapon. But it was better than nothing, and a moment later, when the engine died away and she realized they had parked, she was glad to have it.

It was short enough to conceal behind her back, she realized, tucking it into the waistband of her trousers. It lay flat against her spine, the top of the batten resting against her neck. As long as she didn’t turn around to give Bramlett a look at her back, she could use it as a weapon if she needed it.

She heard the rattle of the lock on the back door and braced herself for a fight. The door opened, letting in a blinding amount of light. She slid into the corner at the back, praying for her eyesight to adjust quickly.

Bramlett’s silhouette filled the doorway, bigger than she remembered. She wondered if that’s how he’d appeared to his previous victims, faceless death, too powerful and relentless to defeat.

To hell with that. She might go down, but not without giving the bastard a damned good fight.

“You killed the other women.” As her eyes adjusted to the flow of light, she began to make out his features. Her words made him smile, and he clapped slowly.

“Brava, Detective. You figured it out.”

“Clearly, you knew I would. Since you took the stupid chance of kidnapping me from your very own nursery.”

He shrugged. “I’m done here, once I take care of you and one more little bit of unfinished business.”

“Business? I’m not buying that.” The strip of batten felt ridiculously insubstantial where it lay against her spine, but she refused to let any hint of defeat creep in. “You enjoy killing. It shows in your handiwork.”

“I do. I really do.” Bramlett’s smile widened. “But it is business. I’ve been paid well to do what I did.”

“By whom?”

He shook his head. “No big confessions from the killer, Detective. This isn’t a movie, and you’re not going to live to tell the tale anyway.”

In a flash, so fast she barely had time to react, he threw himself at her. And it was only in that last second, as she whipped the strip of batten from behind her back, that she caught the glimmer of light on the blade of a deadly-looking hunting knife in his right hand.